Spinoza is not to be read, he is to be
studied;you must approach
him as you would approach Euclid,recognizing
that in these brief two hundred pages a man has written down his lifetime's
thought with stoic sculptory of everything superfluous.Do not think to find its core by running over it rapidly....Read the book not all at once but in small portions
at many sittings.And having
finished it, consider that you have but begun to understand it. Read then
some commentary,like Pollock's
Spinoza, or Martineau's Study of Spinoza, or; better, both.Finally, read the Ethics
again; it will be a new book to you. When you have finished it a second
timeyou will remain forever
a lover of philosophy.

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[37] The biography
of the philosopher supplies us in some sortwith the genesis of his
system. His youth had been passed in thestudy of Hebrew learning,
of metaphysical speculations on
thenature of the Deity.
He was then confronted with the scientificaspect of the world as
revealed by Descartes.
At first the twovisions seemed antagonistic,
but, as
he gazed, their outlinesblended and commingled,
he found himself in the presence not oftwo,but
of ONE;the
universe unfolded itself to him asthe necessary1D6= ONEresult of the Perfect and Eternal G-D.

Do not read these Web Pages
(and the electronic texts listed below)Durant's
Storylinearly as you would
a novel, but rather follow all the links
in turn.EL:[3]:viYou will then
be putting hypertexting to
its fullest and bestSchorschadvantage—the fuller discussionof a thread.If
you do not stick to one Tickle
the Fancythread at a time,this Web Site will be very convoluted,
confusing, and
an annoying maze.

Abridgments
are in an HTML format suitable for conversionby
eBook authoring tools.Where an eBook Reader abbreviation
is given,the HTML has been converted
for that Reader.For eBook Notes and abbreviationssee below.

Wolf's introduction to the Short Treatise on G-D,
Man, and his Well-Being (WST).HTML

I
am an eighty-four year old retired Structural Engineer who has for some
sixty-odd years
studied Spinoza whenever earning a living and having a family and friends
permitted.
I have explained my unending fascination with Spinoza in the Preface
to Spinozistic Ideas.

"A Dedication to Spinoza's Insights—Joseph
B. Yesselman'sHome Page"—is
a resource that investigates and participates in the philosophyof the seventeenth-century Dutch thinker Benedict
de Spinoza (occasionally known as Baruch de Spinoza,or simply Benedict/Baruch Spinoza).The site's author is Joseph B.
Yesselman, a retired structural engineer who has had a lifelong
interest in the philosopher in question.Spinoza's
philosophy itself has been subject to various interpretations,although he is perhaps best known for identifying
G-D and Nature,and
in doing so arguing that there is only one type of substance{and
therefore all things are indivisible;
interdependent parts of one infinite organism}.
His arguments to this end can be found in his most famous publication(albeit a posthumous one), his "Ethics".The resource {Yesselman's
Web Pages} itself
at first appears muddledwith
apparently unrelated brief sections and shorthand hyperlinksfollowing one another with some rapidity.However, the author warns us that the site's content
should not be approached in the way one reads a novel,but instead, one should "surf" the site,
following whatever hyperlinkstickle
the fancy.This proviso granted,
Yesselman provides a good deal of interesting personal insight,particularly into Spinoza's philosophy of emotion(and of note here is Yesselman's relating of Spinoza's
philosophy to calculus,and to the work of Mark Twain).The resource also contains, among other things, a
glossary of Spinoza's philosophical concepts
and definitions,hyperlinks to Spinoza resources hosted elsewhere
on the web,bibliographical
information, and commentary and other secondary
material by Yesselman.The
wealth of information and opinion is vast, and for those who have the patience
to master the form of the resource,the
resource will prove useful.

First on-line October 28, 1996.
Since November 6, 1997
Home Page hits.